"Just to think of the pain he was in. We weren’t there to protect him," Ms Goodwin said. "Think how scared he would have been."

Ms Goodwin says she blames herself for allowing "the predator" into their homes that should have been "Hemi’s safe haven."

"I trusted him, I thought he was a friend," she said in her statement to the court.

The night Hemi was injured they spoke to Ireland at about 6.30pm. "He said everything was fine. If it was that he was struggling and he needed help, there was opportunity to say that."

Hemi's parents are appalled that the charges against Ireland were changed from murder to manslaughter and that he was only jailed for eight-and-a-half years with a parole eligibility date of as easy as March 2019. They have started a petition to change the way the prosecution system handles children's deaths.